Jacob W. Dearing
Dec. 16th, 2015
Critical Abstract #19
Article author: Marc Edelman
Article title: Bringing The Moral Economy Back
Global connectedness has allowed the systems of the world to facilitate mass organizational movements not only in economic sectors but also in social and agrarian reformation. The principle of creating alliances allows causes to have influence on a global scale but also indicates relatable connections across culture gaps as the issues that cause suffering ultimately unit the operations of our planet. Social organization is the general theme of Marc Edelman’s article as he presets the history and framework of a transnational coalition of farmer and peasant organizations from several countries known as “Via Campesina”. Via Campesina promotes agrarian and social reform through the political strategy of mass movement. In order to accomplish this reform removal of the influence of agricultural conglomerates such as the WTO must be attained. This will place power back in the hands of the producer in order to achieve the goal of “food sovereignty”. Despite the authority and power that such mass conglomerations hold their methods of agriculture and the inequitable nature of their business relation’s show the lack of ambition to resolve issues of providing nourishment to those who require access. Furthermore, the dismay of losing small farmers from the agricultural industry is a severally considerable consequence of allowing food management to be centralized to the questionable methods of the WTO and its equivalents. The ramifications of such a large system collapsing would be the inability to reconstruct the system of small farmers whose experience and methods are the hallmarks of their environmental and economic stability.